Through life his choicest topics in the pulpit had been the patriarchs, their lives and characters but as he grew old, he seemed unconsciously to rank amongst their number; to fall into and become one of their own body; himself a Christian patriarch. It was the frequent remark of his friends that he spoke of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, just as if he had lived in their times, heard their conversations, and been well acquainted with them. It is much to be regretted that more full and accurate reports of his sermons and conversations should not have been kept. The truth and originality of his remarks would have made them invaluable. When seated in his chair upon the lawn before his house, surrounded by his family and friends, his conversations took the prevailing turn of his mind, and he used to dwell on the incidents of patriarchal life with a depth of feeling and a power of picturesque description of which one would be glad that the memorials should not have been allowed to perish.
At an examination of the King’s School at Sydney, the headmaster having requested him to ask the boys some questions upon Scripture history, forgetting the business in hand, he broke out into a long and interesting address on patriarchal life and manners. The end contemplated by the headmaster was of course frustrated, “but we dare say,” says the colonial journalist who tells the story, “there are many young persons now growing up into manhood, who, to this day remember the pious and excellent observations of the venerable man.”
His old age exhibited some traits not always to be found, even in good men, after a long life passed among scenes of danger or amidst the hardening warfare of personal animosities. Though to the last bold in reproving sin his real character was that of gentleness and the warmest social affection. None but the bad were ever afraid of him; on the contrary, his presence diffused a genial light and warmth in every company. Cruel savages and little children loved him alike; the wisest men gathered instruction from his lips, while they found pleasure in his simple courtesy and manly open heartedness. He brought home with him in the Rattlesnake from New Zealand, several Maori youths; “they seemed to love and respect their Matua, as they called him, more than any one, or anything, besides. They used to run after his gig like joyous children, and to attempt to catch his eye as if to bask in the sunshine of his benevolent countenance.” “They delighted;” says Mrs. B——, to whose manuscript of Mr. Marsden’s last years of life we are again indebted, “to come to our barrack apartments with him, always making their way to the bookcase first, take out a book and point upwards, as if everybody who had anything to do with ‘Matua’ must have all their books leading to heaven. Pictures pleased them next; when they would direct each others’ attention to what they considered worthy of notice, with extraordinary intelligence; but when the boiled rice and sweets made their appearance, digging their elbows into each others’ sides, with gesticulations of all sorts, and knowing looks, putting their fingers to their mouths, and laughing with greedy joy, Mr. Marsden all the time watching their movements, and expressive faces, as a kind nurse would the gambols and frolics of her playful charge, saying with restrained, but grateful emotion, ‘Yes, sir, nothing like bringing the gospel at once to the heathen. If “music charms the savage breast,” sir, why should not the sweetest sounds that ever met man’s ear do more? Why, sir, the gospel turns a worse than savage into a man, ay, and into a woman too.’ He then related to us the anecdote of a New Zealand woman who, for the last remaining years of her life preached the gospel among her own sex, having acknowledged to him, that before he had brought the word of God to New Zealand, and the Spirit applied it to her heart, she had killed and eaten nineteen children.”
His last communication to the Church Missionary Society, dated December 10th, 1837, and received after his death, is full of hope for his beloved New Zealanders. “I am happy to say the mission goes on well amidst every difficulty. I visited many places in my last voyage from the North Cape to Cloudy Bay. The gospel has made a deep impression upon many of the natives, who now lead godly lives.” The letter, which is written in a large and straggling hand, as though the pen were no longer under its usual firm control, concludes with these touching words: “I am now very feeble. My eyes are dim, and my memory fails me. I have done no duty on the sabbath for some weeks through weakness. When I review all the way the Lord has led me through this wilderness I am constrained to say, Bless the Lord, O my soul, etc,
“Yours very affectionately,
“Samuel Marsden.”
The innocent games of children pleased him to the last. When such meetings were more rare than they have now become, the children of the Paramatta school once a year assembled on his lawn, and then his happiness was almost equal to their own. In his own family, and amongst the children of his friends, he would even take his share in their youthful gambols, and join the merry party at blind man’s buff. Though, as he said of himself, he “never sang a song in his life, for he learned to sing hymns when ten years old, and never sang anything else,” yet he was charmed with the sweet and hearty voices of children joining in some innocent little song, and it pleased him better still if it finished off with a noisy chorus. Yet all this was consistent with his character as a grave, wise old man. Though mirthful, he was never frivolous; in a moment, if occasion called for it, he was ready to discuss the most serious subjects, or to give his opinion upon matters of importance; and he had the enviable talent of mingling even pious conversation with the sports of children.
It was observed that though always unembarrassed in the presence of strangers whatever their rank or importance might be, he never seemed completely happy but in the company of persons of true piety. He does not appear to have spoken very freely in ordinary society on the subject of personal religion, still less on the subject of his own experience; but his emotions were deep, and out of the fulness of the heart his lips would speak, in the midst of such a circle, of the loving-kindness of the Lord. The sense of his own unworthiness seems to have been always present. Of all God’s servants he might have been, as he verily thought himself to be, the most unprofitable; and when any circumstance occurred which led him to contrast the justice of God to others who were left to die impenitent, with the mercy shown to himself, he spoke with a humiliation deeply affecting. With scenes of vice and human depravity few living men were more conversant than he, yet to the last such was the delicacy of his conscience that the presence of vice shocked him as much as if the sight were new. “Riding down to the barracks one morning,” says the lady whose narrative we have already quoted, “to invite Captain B—— and myself that day to dinner to meet the bishop, he had passed what, alas! used to be too frequent an object, a man lying insensible and intoxicated in the road. His usually cheerful countenance was saddened, and after telling us his errand, we could not but ask the cause of his distress. He gave us the unhappy cause, and turning his horse’s head round to leave us, he uttered with deep emotion—
‘Why was I made to hear thy voice And enter while there’s room?’
Throughout the day the subject dwelt upon his mind; after dinner the conversation turned to it, and he was casually asked who was the author of the hymn he had quoted in the morning. He shook his head and said, ‘I cannot tell, perhaps it was Watts, or Wesley,’ and several hymn books were produced in which the bishop and others instituted a fruitless search, the bishop at length saying, ‘I can’t find the hymn, Mr. Marsden.’ ‘Can’t you, sir,’ was the reply, ‘that is a pity, for it is a good hymn, sir—says what the Bible says, free sovereign grace for poor sinners. No self-righteous man can get into heaven, sir, he would rather starve than take the free gift.’ In the course of the day the conversation turning upon New Zealand, the bishop expressed the opinion, once almost universal though now happily exploded, an opinion, too, which Mr. Marsden himself had regarded with some favour in his younger days, that civilization must precede the introduction of the gospel; and his lordship argued, as Mr. Marsden himself had argued thirty years before, in favour of expanding the mind of savages by the introduction of arts and sciences, being impressed with the idea that it was impossible to present the gospel with success to minds wholly unenlightened. Mr. Marsden’s answer is thus recorded—‘Civilization is not necessary before Christianity, sir; do both together if you will, but you will find civilization follow Christianity, easier than Christianity to follow civilization. Tell a poor heathen of his true God and Saviour, point him to the works he can see with his own eyes, for these heathen are no fools, sir—great mistake to send illiterate men to them—they don’t want men learned after the fashion of this world, but men taught in the spirit and letter of the Scripture. I shan’t live to see it, sir, but I may hear of it in heaven, that New Zealand with all its cannibalism and idolatry will yet set an example of Christianity to some of the nations now before her in civilization.’”
It will not be out of place to offer a passing remark upon Mr. Marsden’s conduct to Dr. Broughton, the first bishop of Sydney. As an Episcopalian, sincerely attached to the church of England, he had long desired the introduction of the episcopate into the colonial church, of which, as senior chaplain, he himself had been the acknowledged leader for so many years. When the appointment was made it was a matter of just surprise to his friends that he was passed over in silence, while an English clergyman was placed over him to govern the clergy, amongst whom he had so long presided, and whose entire respect and confidence he had gained. There is no doubt that his integrity and fearless honesty had rendered him somewhat unacceptable to men in power, and that to this his exclusion is, in a great measure, to be ascribed. But this slight brought out some of the finest features in his truly noble character. He had never sought either honours, wealth, or preferment for himself. If a disinterested man ever lived it was Samuel Marsden. The only remark which his family remember to have heard him make upon the subject was in answer to a friend, who had expressed surprise at the slight thus put upon him, in these words—“It is better as it is; I am an old man; my work is almost done.” And when Dr. Broughton, the new bishop, arrived in the colony, he was received by Mr. Marsden not with cold and formal respect but with Christian cordiality. When the new bishop was installed he assisted at the solemn service; the eloquent author of the “Prisoners of Australia,”[K] who chanced to be present, thus describes the scene—“On a more touching sight mine eyes had never looked than when the aged man, tears streaming down his venerable cheek, poured forth, amidst a crowded and yet silent assemblage, the benediction upon him into whose hands he had thus, as it were, to use his own metaphor, ‘yielded up the keys of a most precious charge;’ a charge which had been his own devoted care throughout the storms and the tempests of a long and difficult pilotage. And now like another Simeon, his work well nigh accomplished, the gospel spreading far and wide over the colony and its dependencies, and the prayer of his adopted people answered, he could say without another wish, ‘Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, for mine eyes have seen thy salvation.’” Though differing from him, we may add, on some points, Mr. Marsden retained to the last sincere regard for bishop Broughton, who in return fully appreciated the high and lofty character of his senior chaplain. “Well!” said he one day when he heard of his last illness, breaking out after a thoughtful silence, “if there ever was a truly honest man, Mr. Marsden certainly is one;” and after his death he publicly expressed his “deep sense of the loss he had experienced, and the painful void he felt in the absence of his aged and faithful companion who had so often stood by his side, whose genuine piety and natural force of understanding,” said he, “I held in the highest esteem while he lived, and still retain them in sincerely affectionate remembrance.”